I agree with you that COT is an awesome product. I love it and the people I have worked with there. I also have to agree with a lot of the complaints and frustrations here. They would do themselves a great favor by listening to some of the frustrations. The first would be to try to set realistic expectations. There is a tendency to make promises that never materialize or end up taking years longer than originally promised. Then, when the promised time comes and goes, there tends to be a long silence. I agree that there are bugs that get left unaddressed as they are working on the next great feature.

I have heard it suggested that they would be better off releasing more often updates with few changes each time. I like that idea as it gives us time to test each change rather than have our project blow up and have to go back to earlier versions (I am currently stuck on 8.5.11.0) I have to wonder when the next usable version will be released. It would also allow COT to fix bugs before moving on.

Let me first clarify that COT is awesome product and I was able to build some of my best products with it in very short time.

Yes, Rome was not built in a day but remember, it was burnt in a day. I love the COT and don't want any thing adverse happening to it like ironspeed, morfik, lightswitch etc.

However I have issues with COT team which are really frustrating.

1. Don't promise 'Rome' if can't deliver it - Most of my product requires inline editing of grids and it is being promised from time immortal. I have lost my clients due to not delivering this feature even after years. What to do?

8.6.3 was due in March, It was postponed atleast 20 times. COT can very well could have told users (when they missed first deadline) that 8.6.3 will be available in June' 2017. Why to have such tight schedule and then communicate it to users. (in turn we communicate to our users after adding some days)

2. Have max. two major updates and rest hot fixes. This is major issue where i think COT have to think seriously.

3. Documentation is other area which require improvement. Some of the features like CMS, Dashboard require more detailed documentation. They were promised in this forum only but .... (now I am seeing COT is putting some efforts on it, a welcome aspect)

4. There should be some say of the clients on the new features. Whatever COT think is required may not be so useful to majority of clients. COT should have some communication (both way) on this regard. It is possible that some of functionalities I require but most of other users are not interested, it is ok with me. But a sense of involvement of clients is must.

I again end with my admiration for COT and its developers. Hoping a bright future for them

As i can see we are into two group, group one that desperate for the bug fixed like me, and the other group waiting for the new features of the product like Advance Search and inline editing.

the frustration is COT do not differentiate between those two groups by just release product release that has both bug fix and new features.

i'm waiting for the bug fix more than 5 months and it delayed because of the new features are not ready.

Now most of discussion form people waiting for Advance Search right?, COT will bring that soon, then every body will rush to implemented and their code.

the question is what will happen if later stage some bugs discovered in Advance Search, if that happen then we have to wait another 3-4 months to get fix for that as COT will be busy working on new feature of the product.

Scott, Umesh, Haitham you have extremely valid points. What do you think of the below?

1.(a suggestion to resolve 90% of our bugs before releasing changes) we ask COT for a "UAT"(user acceptance) version of the new release to test from so that we as customers can test and approve the release in order to iron out bug fixes what do you think?
I understand the bugs resulting in go-live releases force COT to try to fix the live scenario which is much more complex because it needs to include "correction code" rather than simply fixing the cause.
(Why should we as customers ask our customers to sign off changes when we aren't doing the same here?)

2.(waiting for changes, choice of enhancements, expectations) regarding changes or enhancements. What if COT gives customers 50% choice on the enhancements in each release by providing a "release portal" to vote from by a certain deadline. Then the highest voted enhancements that can be DONE ON TIME are completed.
The other 50% can be some hopefully amazing enhancements that are decided by COT.

I would be really curious to hear from users what version of COT they are stuck at. I know I am stuck at 8.5.11.0. If a majority of users are stuck like me, then 8.6.0.0 and 8.6.2.0 updates were useless.

I am stuck at 8.5.8 (full of bugs, unusable version) and waiting for a stable version with inline editing in TouchUI a feature that is on the roadmap for last few years. Very frustrating but I must say I love the product.

My 8.6.2.0 oddly works fine(20% apps are old 80% are newly created from this). I work as much as possible in the Model area and only in designer if I have to for finer changes/other logic. I do sometimes have java error messages in the model area but understand this is being revamped so I haven't reported it.

My 8.6.1.0 here also works pretty fine.
I think I prefer it to any of the 8.5.x series.
...the difference in UI is awesome. :D

I was generally just happy with the UI until while looking through PhoneGap for compiling Native Apps I saw that the features framework7 (a HTML5/JS native app UI platform) proudly listed under the heading "Killer Features" on their homepage were features COT had quietly released with version 8.6 as yet just another ordinary feature to help us with app development. Wow!

All I've seen so far are complaints and no suggestions or ideas to actually tackle this from a birds point of view. We've just expected COT to solve it on their own!

The two steps below should actually resolve most, if not all bug problems(for those who get involved) when new releases go out. It will also put our expectations at rest as we will know what to expect and when.

Imagine a situation where we could upgrade with absolute confidence our very old apps will run on the latest version after going through the below. Obviously (taking into consideration whether we know that our app needs a re-write. )

I'll submit the below as an idea, a support request and I'll chat to Dennis/ Surge and if this can be published too to COT customers to show everyone that something good is happening to try to resolve our issues. This is a substantial requirement but think it's worth especially considering everyone's frustrations.

1.(Possibly resolve 99% bugs before releasing changes) we ask COT for a "Test/UAT"(user acceptance) version of the new release to test our apps with so that we as customers can test, be involved and approve the release in order to iron out bug fixes.

Otherwise bugs resulting in go-live releases force COT to try to fix the live scenario which is much more complex because it needs to include "correction code" rather than simply fixing the cause.

(It is contradictory that we as IT customers ask our customers to sign off changes when we make changes but we currently cannot test COT releases on our most important app!)

2.(waiting for changes, choice of enhancements, expectations of what is going to be released and WHEN) regarding changes or enhancements. What if COT gives customers 50% choice on the enhancements in each release by providing a "release portal" to vote on by COT customers by a certain deadline. Then the highest voted enhancements that can be DONE ON TIME are completed.

The other 50% release enhancements can be some hopefully amazing killer features that are decided by COT. :-)

Your view about other users is not entirely correct. While we have complained we have also suggested several things.

We can go on argue about that - but just look at the present proof.

You wrote this post 6 days back. Several people have replied to you. Have you seen a single post - even a word from COT.

This is the way they behave. People write such long posts - I have never seen them bothering about it.

Than one fine day they will come and boast about the upcoming new version and its wonderful features and whole discourse will be diverted.

Look at any of the previous replies. They never reply to such suggestions or posts - all they do is write about upcoming version - which is usually delayed by 2-3 months.

We are partners of SAP and sell their SMB solutions. We have been working with them for 12 years now. We have seen how they manage the new releases. Even at present India is moving to a new tax regime - it is a big change and they have worked ahead of time and ensured that releases were available on time and FAIRLY bug free.

I don't think any company can grow beyond a limit if they maintain such attitude towards customers and such PATHETIC standards for quality control of their software.

They have been talking about so many features - like Inline Editing, Offline capabilities, there are several solutions on the market which have all of these for ages now.

Even small companies in India are able to deliver mobile apps with offline capabilities. There are better solution available but they are very pricey. Which does not fit in our strategy.

Hence sticking to COT.

We are using COT - and will continue using it till we find a comparable solution in terms of features and price.

Some very strong and valid points and see your frustration but I'm trying to find a solution and stay positive.

I don't represent COT.
I also get frustrated.

However if I(like other users) have a crisis it's partly due to poor planning either on my part or from my customers side both often unavoidable. But when I do, I post a support call and call them immediately and they do assist. They have even sent a file that I paste into the project that fixes a bug. The next day.

In order to resolve the bug issues when rolling out, by making the change for us to get involved would logically resolve 90% of everyone's roll out issues (those whom are interested in taking part of course.).

I feel that we as customers are also stakeholders of COT and therefore should also get involved.

I'm an old time Clarion Software/ JPI / Softvelocity user and I am used to yearly updates and interim bug fixes. I abandoned ship because they could not keep up with new trends in a very, very dynamic industry. It was a very stable environment and reasonably easy to guarantee quality products, but they were getting old.

So, sticking with a new-features-each-release company had to do in this kind of environment, not without its commitments if I want to offer the trendiest possible product.

These are the lessons learned after 5 years with COT:

- Stick with the COT version which helps you offer the functionality you *CAN* deliver without compromising expected quality.
- Never, ever promise new features to your customers based on COT's roadmap!.
- Never, ever promise a new release based on COTs expected delivery dates! They will miss it, it will be bug ridden, incomplete and there will be bugs on previous stable functionality.
- Have a separate computer with the latest, greatest COT version and use it for proof of concept, testing, and prototyping purposes. And yes, to be able to report bugs to COT.

Just as a little example. After figuring out that COT themselves didn't know exactly where they were heading to with the new touch mode (and I was proven right, they have changed their mobile/touch framework several times since the initial mobile mode release, without ever finishing a comparable feature list iteration with desktop mode). So, my great responsive design products have been on hold for more than 2 years, and shown only as a preview, and if a customer insists, they are sold with tons of disclaimers. So my products are officially desktop mode only.